


One Gold, Two Gold (Rose Gold, Blue Gold)

by Go0se



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, Feelings Realization, HELLO i am LATE but I am HERE, Intimidating small-town fantasy cops for fun and profit, Short One Shot, Widobrave Week 2020 (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: For Widobrave Week day 2: 'Cons'.  Caleb has called Veth his wife twice now.
Relationships: Nott/Caleb Widogast, Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast, Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 9
Kudos: 90





	One Gold, Two Gold (Rose Gold, Blue Gold)

Caleb knows, rationally, that Veth has been in situations far, _far_ more dire than this and scrambled out the ass- end of them whole and healthy and well, but that does nothing to stop the cold rage radiating through his blood.  
The small-town militia captain grins at him, all teeth, from behind the wooden desk in the jail’s first room. “Look, if you want us to release your little friend there--”  
Without thinking, smooth and automatic but most importantly biting _,_ Caleb cuts the officer off. “She is my wife and you will not speak about her that way.”

That surprises the man into silence for a second. Good, the fucker. Caleb doesn’t break eye contact.  
He can hear the others freeze behind him, and Jester muffle a squeak. His mind registers that this is a strange reaction, records it, and places it neatly into the box of things that don’t warrant his attention that second, which then vanishes. It is a problem for Future Caleb to deal with. Veth needs him.

The officer composes himself and protests. “Listen, sir, she was exhibiting suspicious behaviour.”  
“And you have proof of that?”  
The split-second of silence is answer enough. Inwardly, Caleb breathes a sigh of relief. Out loud he says, as icy as fields in winter, “She’s not committed any crime so you have no business detaining her, here. Where is she?”  
  
Beauregarde is the first to rally behind him. “ _Yeah_ ,” she adds loudly, sliding through the group to the desk and flattening her palm on it aggressively. Not quite a slam, but definitely an intimidation. “And where the hell is her stuff? We saw you take her crossbow. We’re not leaving without it _back._ ”

That does it.  
The militia personnel serving the front desk squabble back and forth for another moment, but one of them finally stands up and gets a ring of keys down from a hook near the ceiling, Relief bubbling in his chest, but not quite enough to ease the anxiety curling there, Caleb follows him around the corner and leaves his friends to deal with any paperwork that might be involved.

It’s only as he turns down the hallway into the dank row of cells that the holding box clicks open a centimetre, and he abruptly remembers Veth’s feelings towards him-- everything that Veth had said before they’d transformed her back-- and his stomach plummets. Oh, gods, he’s being cruel. He hadn’t meant to.  
Can't back out now. Caleb hopes fervently that she’ll recognize it’s only meant as a con, promising himself he'll to apologize to her as soon as they're out of earshot.

Veth is sat on the terrible straw mattress that were so common in cells the Empire over. The moment the guard opens her cell door, she’s on her feet, suspicion written across her round face.  
Caleb immediately drops to one knee and holds a hand out to her. His guilt is-- weirdly-- assuaged a bit by the fact that he can feel the guard staring a hole through the back of his head. “Are you alright, honey?” He blurts, hoping blindly that she’ll understand and not break their cover. The endearment feels strange and stilted. He’d never called someone _honey_ once in his life.

He needn’t have worried. Veth looks at him shrewdly for half a second before she visibly gets it. A funny kind of smile appears on her face, but before Caleb can parse it, she’s all-but thrown herself into his arms. “Honestly, babe, I’ve had better afternoons,” she jokes into his shoulder.  
Then she pulls back and held his face in her clever hands for a moment before leaning in and kissing him very showily, just to the left of his lips.  
The funny swoop his heart does when she calls him that, and the warmth of her skin, are two things that go into the box in his mind, which vanishes again. He keeps the pride in her, which fills his chest with a warm glow like candlelight.  
Caleb gently cups her cheek with his hand when she pulls away. The deep brown of her skin really sets off the emerald of the tattoo. It’s only very obvious so close. “Let’s get the hell out of here, then.”  
She grins at him, close-lipped and dimpled.

An hour and twenty-eight minutes later, they’re all back at the inn that they’ve selected for the night, and Veth is sipping some sugared barley water. Jester and Caduceus are at the bar, hassling Fjord for sailing songs, and Beau and Yasha are at another table a bit farther away from the noise. He’d checked in with Jester before sitting down with Veth-- but the milk in this town is actually very fresh. Farming towns have a lot of good cows.

It’s good to sit with her alone for a bit. Veth clears her throat at him as he’s halfway into his pint of beer. With the same funny little smile she had in the cell, she says, “Hey.”  
He smiles back. “Hey.”  
“We’ve used that trick twice now, right?” Raising her left hand in explanation. Her wedding band sparkles in the early-dusk light streaming through the inn bar’s windows. “Or, one and a half, I guess,” Veth amends. “The first one was kinda half that and half Mod Lit.”

“That’s what we always call it,” Caleb agrees. He feels himself blush, and resists the urge to drain his mug as an excuse to leave the table. Instead, he says, “What were-- ah, what were you thinking? That we should name it?” Their official naming threshold for cons had been ‘one on purpose, two accidental’. He blinks out of the brief wistful memory when Veth speaks.  
“I was thinking ‘rose gold’,” she says, making an arc with her hand like she’s casting Prestidigitation. “Or, oh! We could use ‘blue gold’ for the, y’know, more disaster version. Like how fake gold tarnishes more easily.” She raises her eyebrows at him in a, _eh?_ motion.  
Caleb considers for a second. Then he raises his pint in her direction.  
She clicks with her own glass and a small ‘huzzah’.

Draining her drink surprisingly quickly, Veth gets to her feet. “Well, I’ve gotta go check out all the stuff I definitely didn’t steal from the mayor’s office,” she says graciously, patting the bag of holding that hung off her belt at her hip.

Ah. “I’ll meet you up there soon,” Caleb promises, in case she’ll need to Identify anything.

She shrugs. “No rush,” she says. Then she tugs on the sleeve of Caleb’s coat. Without a single hesitating thought he leans down to her level, curiously, and she plants another soft kiss an inch to the right of his lips. “Enjoy your drink, babe,” she says, eyes sparkling. Then she turns and disappears upstairs.

Caleb straightens back upright mechanically and holds his drink. His blush is wildly worse.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that the others had stopped chatting among themselves and were now pretending not to watch him and Veth, and where Veth left to, with varying degrees of success.  
He swallows more beer against the butterflies suddenly occupying his ribcage and tries very hard not to put two and two together.

One of the problems with panic responses, though, is that when you’re no longer in crisis they announce themselves whenever they feel like. At that exact moment, Caleb remembers that Jester had sounded _delighted_ when he’d accidentally called Veth his wife, and that the rest of his friends had frozen the way you do when someone reveals a secret. To say nothing of how strangely, neck-warming nervous he’d felt so close to Veth and her kisses.

Caleb sets his glass on the table and hides his face in his hands. “ _Mist_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is a Dr. Seuss reference, it is 11:35p.m. and that's what we GET
> 
> I'd completely missed this happening previously, somehow! Hopefully I can get at least a couple of other works out there for it, they deserve so much love. ~~(Bc they love each other so much. Just. Listen. _Listen_~~ )  
> Thank you for reading. ❤


End file.
